National Review All Snitty About Poors And Taxes For A Change

Deroy Murdock at the NRO is really peeved, you guys, because he’s somehow accidentally managed to hear about things like “income inequality” and “fairness.” He’s TRIED to cover his ears and go la la la la la la and never ever watch anything other than Fox News, but that doesn’t drown out the screams of the class warriors coming for him with their pitchforks, so he’s trying a new strategy: avoiding the issue altogether by discussing income taxes and Margaret Thatcher, who made England such a free market paradise not at all filled with junkies and punks and Sid Vicious. And to be fair, he’s doing a pretty good job of it, managing to avoid touching on any of the substantive issues regarding income inequality and what it portends for the dystopian post-capitalist nightmare towards which we careen ever closer on a daily basis! Good job, Deroy Murdock!

Doodly doodly doo, sup Deroy?

Class warriors scream about imposing “fairness” on the rich, but their shouts become mumbles when asked what precise tax rate achieves “fairness.”

Wait, activists’ policy prescriptions aren’t specifically oriented around the tax code? (Except for the president’s prescriptions, which have been fairly specific seeing as how they have numbers attached and everything?) No problemo, because the tax code is TOTALLY FAIR ALREADY because taxes! Income taxes, anyway, which are the most important measure of “fairness” because, well, EVERYONE knows that taxes are the opposite of “freedom,” duh. And the fact that the bottom 50% earned so little that they only earned 13.5% of national income? They should be THANKFUL because they only had 2.3% of their freedom taken away.

Liberals fall mum amid these facts: In 2009, the latest IRS figures demonstrate, the much-maligned top 1 percent of taxpayers earned 17 percent of national income and paid 37 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent made 43 percent of national income and surrendered 70.5 percent of income-tax revenues. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent scored 13.5 percent of national income and paid just 2.3 percent of income taxes.

Give us a minute. Your Wonkette has fallen mum amid these facts. Let’s talk about Margaret Thatcher while we recover, and fantasize that someone will actually want to pay us $500,000 to do something.

Like Thatcher, American conservatives should reject the concept of the income gap. Who cares about the gap, provided that those on the bottom advance in absolute terms? Consider two job offers: (a) You will earn $50,000, while your boss makes $55,000, just 10 percent more. (b) You will earn $500,000, while your employer gets $1 million — twice your salary. “Unfairness” suddenly looks spectacular.

Why, yes, it does look spectacular! Especially since the average CEO makes 343 times what his average worker makes, not “twice.” Anyway, libruls, consider yourself pwned please. And if you happen to meet someone who is concerned about “income inequality,” you can totally shut them down by talking about a bunch of nonsense strung together to look like complete sentences.

NAILED IT. Policy genius, amiright? Anywho, to sum: income inequality isn’t a problem because of taxes, which are already more than fair. Also, someday someone might offer you a job for $500,000, which is pretty awesome. But if you still persist in wanting to help poor people, forget about income taxes. Just eliminate ALL taxes for corporations, destroy social security, privatize schools, destroy unions, and deregulate everything.

About the author

Kris E. Benson writes about politics for Wonkette and is pursuing a doctorate in philosophy. This will come in handy for when they finally open that philosophy factory in the next town over.
@Kris_E_Benson

Yes, 1%, reject the "concept" of the income gap, so that you'll never see the reality of it coming to kill your in your sleep.

Capital loves a metaphysician.

Boojum

This issue deprives me of humor. These fucks.

Civilization is what happens when people get together and agree to invest in their collective future. They build, for generations, so that civilization will not fall to entropy.

These fucks come in, like locusts, and fucking EAT EVERYTHING that was planted before they were born, in fields that were cleared when their great grandparents were children, and have the gall to claim they "earned" it. No, you stupid bastards, YOU ATE THE FUCKING SEED CROP!!!

Gah. Burn them out.

James Michael Curley

Bravo! Boojum.

proudgrampa

Well said, Boo. Many upfists for your thoughtful comments!

Love,
proudgrampa

ps. Some of my best friends are taxpayers.

mormos

1 million upfists! /)*(

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

"Gap? I don't see a gap."

It's like when Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he realizes, "DUH!"

http://www.counterpunch.org 4TheTurnstiles

You want a specific rate, motherfucker? You're thinking of a quantitative one, but we think qualitatively. Here's your fucking rate: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. And I need you to eat a bowl of shit, which I will fill to the best of my ability.

Fuck you with a tire iron. Also.

SorosBot

Yeah, or if we want to deal with income inequality by policies that actually will help the poor, instead of this idiot's plans which will make matters much worse for all the non-rich.

mavenmaven

Let's abolish the EPA and increase fracking, etc, so that life spans will be shortened, less social security will be spent, and more job turnover due to death and injury! Sounds perfect to me.

Schmannnity

How does that go, oh yeah, figures don't lie, but liars figure.

http://www.wonkette.com/ FlownOver

92 Fucking Percent! I Like Ike!

Native_of_SL_UT

To poor people: When we take away the government benefits you now have, that will make you work harder and be more productive to society.
To rich people: When we improve the government benefits you now have, that will make you work harder and be more productive to society.

GOPCrusher

Take stuff away from poor people=sound fiscal policy
Make rich people pay more in taxes=class warfare

LastGasp

Someday someone might offer me a job for $500,000. That would be great. Then I might be able to pay off my student loans.

el_donaldo

I make $50,000 if the boss makes $55K? But if the boss get a raise to a million bucks, suddenly I'd be making 10 times as much as I was before? Nice math, asshole.

And way to make a solid case for raising the tax rate so we can put a little more money into primary school education.

Allmighty_Manos

Next time someone complains they are having hear attack I will challenge them: "If you hate heart problems so much, may I suggest a diet of triple bacon whoppers with cheese, a carton of Kools a day, and big soft couch to plop your fat ass on."

Baconzgood

Can I make an appointment with you Dr. Hands-of-Fate?

freakishlywrong

Frank Luntz is really busy lately. All this claptrap from the wingtards is exactly the same shit, regurgitated over and over again.

http://sciencekick.blogspot.com valthemus

Frank Luntz is a classic poopy head.

docteur_giraud

And he's not feeling a little class envy about being born a "Murdock" and not a "Murdoch"? Please.

Oblios_Cap

I read it as "Morlock".

Generation[redacted]

He has a real plan to help the Eloi

SorosBot

Or being a Murdock and not being an ass-kicking blind lawyer whose other senses are super-human.

SayItWithWookies

Mr. Murdock's suggestions for helping the poor also have a 99.9% failure rate — which is why the Republicans are determined to try them a thousand times.

Baconzgood

The top 10 percent made 43 percent of national income….the bottom 50 percent scored 13.5 percent of national income.

Dude pointing that out doesn't help your case about income inequality douche bag.

PuckStopsHere

Excuse me, but I've fallen mum and I can't get up…

el_donaldo

Shorter Murdock: "If I can blithely ignore cause and effect, established facts, and basic rules of math, so can you successfully and safely ignore the growing income gap."

http://www.wonkette.com John Birf Society

Next Deroy Murdock column: Why Ike Turner was actually a great husband.

Lionel[redacted]Esq

Followed by Marie Antoinette: A Leader for Our Times

RavenRant

You reminded me of a radio interview Ike Turner gave to give 'his side of the story'. His defense? "I didn't beat her any more than the average guy beats his woman."

Lionel[redacted]Esq

And NRO is all in favor of the average guy.

RavenRant

For wife beating, average guy standard = good.

For income, average guy standard = useless loser parasite moocher.

Average gal standard = make me a sammich.

Goonemeritus

“but that doesn’t drown out the screams of the class warriors coming for him with their pitchforks,”

No way our nation’s poor can afford the luxury of pitchfork ownership in today’s economy.

So um what happens when the bubble pops again and they pay 0% corporate tax.

SorosBot

Fuck, a lot of businesses manage to weasel their way into paying 0% taxes right now. The author is using the common wingnut trick of talking about tax rates as if they are the same thing as taxes actually paid.

Billmatic

I just seriously want to know what the right has planned after the economy craters and there's no taxes left to cut. I mean really, what then?

Or is their whole problem is that they suffer under the delusion that resources are unlimited and economic growth can be permanent and infinite as long as everyone prays to jesus and pays no taxes?

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

I just seriously want to know what the right has planned after the economy craters and there's no taxes left to cut.

"Nice country but we gotta go. Tahiti?"

HistoriCat

You've never heard of the Fuck Off and Die You Dirty Poors plan?

sullivanst

I believe the bumper sticker reads Mangez les Pauvres!

Billmatic

mmm i hope the poors like cake

Generation[redacted]

Chief Executive Magazine has ranked the best states in terms of secure, gated communities and legalization of private armies.

Billmatic

1. Columbia
2. Mexico
3. Brazil

?

Baconzgood

Laffer curve porn. Jesus this makes me sick.

OKthennext

Capitalist Jesus would heal you, but you have to pay your deductible and co-pay first.

Next from NRO: Slavery and Debtor's Prisons: How the Right Can Get Rid of the Poor Once and For All!

bureaucrap

"Before the Civil War, many of the so-called "poor" actually received free food, clothing, medical care, and housing, plus a generous allowance of iron jewelry for their necks, wrists, and ankles. That seems MORE than fair to me — downright generous. Would that big government would allow our current job creators to demonstrate that level of generosity now."

Stevola

Job creators indeed. They had 100% employment, too.

Oblios_Cap

Stupid is as stupid writes…

poorgradstudent

…because not even pretending to give a damn about employment and focusing only on abstract factors like inflation made Thatcher and the Conservative Party so beloved in Britain. It's not like there's an entire sub-genre of British music about what a monster Thatcher is and wishing for her death!

http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/ Chow Yun Flat

Here’s how the Right should challenge the Left: “If you dislike income inequality, lift those with the least. destroy the remaining shreds of the safety net and grind them into dust.

Fukui-sanYesRadio

Apparently the best way to do this is with the same bullshit Republican stuff that's been pushed since, oh, 1978 or 1980 or so.

You know, that technique where those with the least see income rise of 11% in thirty years whereas the top 1% see a rise of 250%.

edgydrifter

And when all these ideas are adopted, and the economy crumbles like a favela in a mudslide, and the air stings to breathe, and the crime rate soars, and unemployment is 45%, and a gallon of gas costs $12, and a gallon of clean water costs $14, these guys will furiously argue over whose fault it all is–the homos or the Mexicans.

Major Thom

It's Obama's fault. It's ALWAYS Obama's fault.

hagajim

Hows about we just eliminate the cap on Social Security income so the dude who makes $1 million pays in his 6.2% like I pay in mine. Then cap S.S. earnings post retirement to 10% of your income ($100K) at your peak earnings year for those who earned over $1 million annually for more than 10 years.

James Michael Curley

Several years ago it was calculated that if the Social Security Income Cap was eliminated a incredibly small portion of one percent would fund Social Security and Medicare programs into infinity. When I served on a local committee of the 1992 Democratic Platform committee the number being circulated then was 0.2% If the Social Security Gap were eliminated and the rate changed to 0.2% a person earning $3,444,000 would pay only $8 a year MORE than he pays now. Naturally if you earn less than $100,000 a year your Social Security/Medicare tax would be $200 per year. Yet that guy earning 34.4 times more than you do would be paying only 34.4 times what you do not 17,200 times less than you do.

What, no repeal of child labor laws? Guy calls himself a conservative? Pffft.

http://sciencekick.blogspot.com valthemus

When they start seriously talking about debtor's prisons, I'll know it's time to find my own little spider hole somewhere in Peru.

sullivanst

Because nothing says "conserv[ativ]e" like a radical overhaul of the social contract. Amiright, Paul Ryan?

GOPCrusher

It's implied with "right-to-work laws"
Children will have the right to work.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Totally want to indulge my stabby side and go all "White Riot" over Murdock's head…

sullivanst

Well all this Thatcher talk is bringing back pleasant memories of the music of a late-era Thatcher-hating band (although their actual music wasn't usually specifically directed at her), The Stone Roses:

I'm throwing stones at you man
I want you black and blue and
I'm gonna make you bleed
Gonna bring you down to your knees
Bye bye badman, bye bye

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

This is in my mind mostly because I just saw the English Beat last weekend, and "Stand Down Margaret" is a classic of the genre.

i sometimes wonder if i'll ever get the chance
just to sit with my children in a holiday jam
our lives seem petty in your cold grey hands
would you give a second thought
would you ever give a damn, i doubt it
stand down Margaret

GuanoFaucet

Needs more workhouses.

Tundra Grifter

And treadmills. Don't forget the treadmills.

Dashboard Buddha

Only if built and maintained by the private sector. Freedom!

SorosBot

"Who cares about the gap, provided that those on the bottom advance in absolute terms?"

But that doesn't happen. Guess what, the more resources the people at the top consume, the less there is available for the rest of us.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Yea, I'm thinking that this asshole doesn't understand the concept of real dollars or how inflation and wage stagnation now has more people at lower incomes levels than at any time since the 50s.

GOPCrusher

And these are the same assholes that think that having a minimum wage law is holding the jerb creators back.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Well, see, if labor costs were zero, then they could create unlimited jobs! They could even put their private ballwashers on the payroll!

CrunchyKnee

It's like these stupid fucks think that they are better than us, or something.

Oh, no, that's still not nearly enough. After all, we know that Obama's regulations are killing billions and billions of American jobs.

http://www.wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

Damn Wingnut Welfare queens and their Koch paid Lexus'.

Giveusabob

… America’s anti-competitive 35 percent corporate tax … which BTW applies only to businesses with $18.3M or more in gross income, who at that level are probably investing heavily in accounting resources to find every loophole and deduction known to Adam Smith, and thus not actually paying that % anyway.

But, not to detract from your thesis, at any rate …

Tundra Grifter

Since at least half the corporations in America pay no Federal income tax at all, this idiot quoting the maximum rate doesn't prove much, now does it?

How about the ever-increasing percentage of Federal revenue from individuals rather than corporations?

GOPCrusher

Weren't these the same fuckers that were bitching about GE getting a one billion dollar tax refund?

BigSkullF*ckingDog

My pitchfork does double duty with compost and class warfare. But even though my compost and the 1% are both dirty piles of rotten crap, my compost seems way less disgusting.

UnholyMoses

Class warriors scream about imposing “fairness” on the rich, but their shouts become mumbles when asked what precise tax rate achieves “fairness.”

How's about 50% on top earners? After all, it was good enough for Maggie Thatcher's BFF, Ronny Raygun, so why not now?

Liberals fall mum amid these facts: In 2009, the latest IRS figures demonstrate, the much-maligned top 1 percent of taxpayers earned 17 percent of national income and paid 37 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent made 43 percent of national income and surrendered 70.5 percent of income-tax revenues. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent scored 13.5 percent of national income and paid just 2.3 percent of income taxes.

The top 1% has seen it's wealth increase by 1,700% since 1980, while the rest of us only 24ish%.

The CBO notes that, since 1980 (when the GOP's control of economic policy began), the bottom fifth of earners saw their incomes increase by less than 20 percent [since 1979]. Incomes for those in the middle 60 percent climbed by less than 40% … the top fifth of earners saw their cash flow jump by 65 percent, and the top 1 percent saw their incomes spike by 275 percent.

So yeah, you ignorant fuckhole. Top earners pay more taxes because THEY HAVE MORE GODDAMN MONEY.

Only the willfully ignorant, ideologically driven, or just plain clinically fucking stupid would try to justify passing the burden onto everyone else.

Oh, and note: Those who make less than $8K a year, are disabled, or on Social Security, are the targets of the right's bullshit "47% pay no taxes" claim. To these alleged Christians, it's better to have some poor grandmother or quadriplegic pay a higher % of their meager incomes in taxes than it is to ask Bill Gates to pony up a penny more.

Jesus would be so proud of them …

proudgrampa

Well said, Moses!

http://dismalpseudoscientist.wordpress.com Mumbly_Joe

Get rid of OSHA and the SEC, to help lift up the poor. Makes perfect sense to me; after all, it's not like poor peoples' jobs are ever especially hazardous, and with their sizable financial portfolios, the financial regulations stifle their ability to prosper.

James Michael Curley

When increased OSHA regs came in I was working in a motorcycle shop and our Service Area was in the basement with all the pipes in the ceiling area. Our 'owner' complained incessantly over having to paint them to comply with a failed OSHA inspection. Our owner had also taken too many hits without his helmet because he thought that infringed on his 'freedom' also. It is hard to be sympathetic to some one like that who, while ranting about the need to identify what pipes delivered what, grabs one to go up the ladder and it is a steam pipe.

Generation[redacted]

Don't forget the EPA. It's not like poor people live near industrial polluters which can't be trusted to clean up after themselves.

HistoriCat

Polluters just don't have the right incentives to clean up after themselves.

Personally, I think forcing the executive team of the offending company to eat some toxic waste on national television would provide the right incentive.

__kth__

100% of everything over $1 million per year.

You're welcome, Deroy.

BlueStateLibel

That dude in the accompanying picture looks EXACTLY like Mitt Rmoney – I bet Rmoney even has a pair of checkered slacks like that in his wardrobe.

http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com Pop_Socket

As soon as the Mittster is paying a higher effective tax rate than I am, come back and lecture me on fairness.

HobbesEvilTwin

(not) Joe the (not) Plumber and I can hardly wait for our $500k jobs.

FakaktaSouth

I will say it again – HEY NRO ASSHOLES – the country is what you have made it. Can we stop talking like the situation this country is in is not a product of the policies you implemented and that you have succeeded in your goal. I know you know this and I know you know it has fucked everything up for every body but rich people by the way you are not admitting this, not celebrating the results, not telling people yes, this is what we wanted, PLUS MORE. Your lies and distortions and pleas for more gives away one more thing – you KNOW you depend on your dupes who will NEVER have money, never be a CEO, to carry this on, because if they understood the facts behind what you were doing, they wouldn't allow it to continue. You are all terrible, terrible propaganda whores.

http://sciencekick.blogspot.com valthemus

I think the folks at NRO have special shields that deflect criticism from anyone who doesn't have at least an 8-figure net worth.

I've read this sentence about a dozen times, and I'll be fucked sideways if I can figure out what the hell this means. I thought "right to work" laws meant that a company could fire anyone, at any time, without cause. How, exactly, does this avoid the festering? Is it just that the festering will be done elsewhere?

HistoriCat

Closed shops are a non-existent anachronism – they haven't existed in more than 60 years. It's a nice little bit of misdirection/lying by this hateful gnome. Your mistake is that you keep trying to read the sentence as it it should be an actual, logical statement. It's actually codeword bullshit.

Biel_ze_Bubba

The GOP are masters of doublespeak. "Right-to-work" is code for union-busting, i.e. your right to work for the absolute minimum that your plutocrat boss can get away with paying. Which would be 50 cents a day, if these jackasses get their way, because minimum wage laws are equally evil. If that's not enough, you're "free" to take a job with some other boss, who might be paying 51 cents. It that's not enough, you should just go off and die of starvation, because obviously there's a surplus of labor.

fuflans

ahhh supply side economics is back.

and it worked to well the last time.

DaRooster

I hope I can win the Lotto… so I can pay fewer taxes.

http://whatisawatthedevolution.blogspot.com imissopus

I have fallen mum because the stupidity of Murdock's arguments caused me to bang my head against my desk until I destroyed the speech centers of my brain.

barto

Let's follow his argument to its logical conclusion, wherein the upper echelons are making even more money and paying even more of an overall percentage of taxes. This is so UNFAIR!

ibwilliamsi

Tax capital gains the same as income. Locate off-shore accounts of tax dodgers (Romney) and confiscate them all as penalty. Jail anyone caught a second time with off-shore tax dodging accounts. Eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax on Corporations.

fuflans

speaking of the economy, new study by fitch and oxford economics:

A study out this week from Fitch Ratings and Oxford Economics suggests that stimulus spending in America in response to the fiscal crisis increased aggregate GDP by more than 4%, which, say the researchers, implies “that the US might still be mired in a recession” without the intervention.

hope bamz campaign throw this in their fucking faces. repeatedly.

GOPCrusher

Problem being, the Republiklan Talking Point is that Obama promised to keep unemployment at less than 8% with the stimulus package and it went over that amount, therefore Obama lied to the American public and the Stimulus was a failure.

James Michael Curley

It was over 8% when he took office. It went from 4.4% to 7.8% in the last 22 months of the Bush fiasco. That is a totally unprecedented climb of 3.4 points not seen since 1931. So Obama had the task of turning a giant tanker moving at full speed ahead and he never promised to keep it a under 8% that is part of the lies of the Republican Talking Points. Fact Check rebutted this a couple times over the last few years.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Other problem being that it takes two entire sentences to explain. Way too much for teabaggers to process. If you can't get it on a bumper sticker (leaving room for an American flag), you can fuhgeddaboudit.

http://wonkette.com/ starfanglednut

This guy should be fisted by the invisible hand.

Oh wait, he'd like it.

http://dismalpseudoscientist.wordpress.com Mumbly_Joe

Four years at a college that put the Liberal in liberal arts, and two years before that, learning AP History and Econ from a Marxist, and in the end, I get radicalized years later, by the National Review. Life's funny that way, I guess.

That's got to be the best thing about writing fiction – none of it has to be necessarily true!

Biel_ze_Bubba

Actually, I'm perfectly willing to subscribe to this fellow's theories. Provided, of course, that employers be required to pay employees half of what they make, so that the theory will work as advertised.

ttommyunger

This claptrap word-salad resonates with a certain group of Americans. About half of that group live in luxury in Manhattan. Disturbingly, the other half lives in trailers in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

http://sciencekick.blogspot.com valthemus

Hey, Murdock… on the day when 7-11 cashiers are making $100K a year, then we can talk about how brilliant your math is.

GOPCrusher

That's how they get 7-11 cashiers to join in on the "tax hikes to the rich=class warfare" argument.
They lead them to believe that someday, if they work hard, they will make 100K a year selling Slurpees.

Me_K_Cong

NR has gone downhill. This is from an article on Elizabeth Warren:

"Then there’s “Elizabeth,” a 62-year-old Democratic Senate candidate from Massachusetts. Like Barack’s white girlfriend, she couldn’t be black. She would if she could, but she couldn’t. But she could be a composite — a white woman and an Indian woman, all mixed up in one!"

sullivanst

Holy shit reading that just knocked at least four points off my IQ. WTF?

You know the GOP is morally and politically bankrupt when their mud machine has to dredge up stuff said by somebody's college girlfriend 30 years ago … and then attach it to a third person.
NR used to have actual editors. When did the current imbeciles take over the ship?

not that Dewey

Deroy c'est merde! Vive Deroy!

http://dismalpseudoscientist.wordpress.com Mumbly_Joe

You know, I want to harp on the whole, "Ban OSHA to help (businesses better exploit) poor people" thing. Here's a story about two workers who fell into a vat of nitric acid and suffered sever chemical burns, today, in 2012.

This was seriously the topic of weird comic book tropes from the first half of the 20th century, and yet, here in the 21st century, it is still not particularly far-fetched for a worker to just cold fall into an open chemical vat. Yes, let's ban OSHA, because workplace safety isn't lax enough.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Supply and demand are people too, my friend. Those two employees are perfectly fungible. If enough of them die to affect the bottom line, the free market will then install safety equipment. Simple!

If the compensation is $50k/$55k then the employees earn 82% of all money earned.

If the compensation is $500k/$1M then the employees earn 71% of all money earned.

Casual inspection of the numbers shows that employees' aggregate (and, therefore, individual) buying power is negatively correlated with income disparity.

I'm not trying to suggest that income disparity is a bad thing – maybe employees shouldn't be able to buy stuff – but someone should acquaint Murdock with basic economics, ideally via his anus.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Wait — you want the employees to be able to buy stuff? Socialist!!

pdiddycornchips

This has been the Republican game plan since Reagan. If we focus our policies to ensure the merely wealthy become spectacularly rich, somehow the rest of us will benefit.
This has actually been federal policy over the last few decades and guess what? The results are quite conclusive. It doesn't work. The rich will invest in corporations that in turn invest in emerging markets where labor is cheap, regulation is non-existent and government officials can be counted on to deal with any push back from the natives. For a small fee of course. What is missing from the analysis here is FICA taxes which are a substantial burden on most average wage earners but because they are capped, not much of a burden on the wealthy. All anyone needs to know about taxes is that Mitt Romney earned 20 + mil last year and paid less that 13.9% in income taxes. 13.9% for a guy running for President, who knows his returns will be heavily scrutinized. The changes in the tax code since the so called Bush tax cuts have heavily favored the rich while having little to no impact for the average wage slave. According to wingnut logic, the result should have been more revenue coming in to federal coffers (because tax cuts produce more revenue), a robust economy ( because all those millions in tax savings would be used to start new businesses and invest in existing ones) and we should be at almost full unemployment. The actual results are a ballooning deficit driven by a loss in revenue, robust corporate profits that benefit upper management and hedge fund investors and no one else and less employment as more jobs are moved overseas every year. We're hollowing out the middle. Next stop, destruction of the social safety net. We can't support medicare and social security because we're shrinking both the pay and the absolute number of workers. The corresponding increase in the number poor and working poor will overwhelm the system. Their plan is to drop all the social programs on the states in a vein attempt to avoid the blame when the shit hits the fan. We're ruled by some evil motherfuckers. We need a better class of elites and soon. The ones we have now suck.

JustPixelz

"…allow personal Social Security retirement accounts…"

Repubicans sure love those old private retirement accounts. I say "old", because that's what we had before the Great Depression. People had money in the bank, they owned stocks (the 401k plan of their time) and company pensions which, of course, are also private. It was paradise.

Until October 1929. Then the financial system collapsed. Stocks plummeted erasing personal investments. Banks failed wiping out people's life savings. Companies went bankrupt taking those pensions with them.

Retirees were suddenly destitute, looking for work in desperate times, amplifying the unemployment rate, competing with younger, equally desperate men and women with children to feed. Social Security was created so those seniors would get out of the job market.

When the economy turns down, the last thing you want is for older workers to stay on the job until their private retirement account recovers. You want those older workers to exit gracefully leaving their job for a younger man or woman.

GeneralLerong

My magic number is $500K.

70% tax on all income over $500K, especially capital gains.
First $500K of all home mortgages – anywhere in the country, for any home mortgage holder – reduced to 3%.

Oh, and while we're at it:
Debt jubilee on college loans.
Cash for clunkers.
Medicare for all.
A palomino pony.

PubOption

What is the 3% on mortgages, interest rate or tax deduction on interest paid?

PubOption

Thinking about the hypothetical bosses from Deroy's article, it seems to me highly unlikely that the same person would be offered jobs paying $50,000 and $500,000 within a short period of time. Suppose that I am currently unemployed, and that my previous job payed $60,000, I receive two job offers on the same day, with both jobs paying $50,000. In the one case my immediate supervisor would be making $55,000, in the other my immediate supervisor would be making $1,000,000. In one case it is obvious that the company is offering way below what they could afford. In the other case the boss is either doing his best for his employees, or is being dishonest about what he, and/or his immediate family, is taking out of the business, and therefore likely to be underhanded about other things. If neither company is prepared to negotiate salary, I would check, as well as I was able, into the affairs of the second business, and, if they appear to be honest, sign with them.
What do you think Deroy?

Biel_ze_Bubba

"Who cares about the gap, provided that those on the bottom advance in absolute terms?" Ah yes, one of the GOPtards' favorite bogus arguments. "Why do you care if I make a million, so long as I let you make a thousand?"

Robert Reich explains exactly why you should care, dickhead. So does common sense: the gap cant go on increasing forever.

http://howtosavetheworld.ca/ BZ1

Deroy Murdock, I got mine, etc. etc.

lulzmonger

"Let them eat cake!"

Sounds fine to me … I hear Dead Rich Bastard cake is DELICIOUS.

Generation[redacted]

Sounds like he already stuck a whole box of 64 crayons up his nose, and sneezed out 63

sullivanst

1. Lower corporate taxes
2. ???
3. Profit!

DERP!

GOPCrusher

Sounds like perfectly acceptable Raygun Economic Policy.
That's why America was great until the blah man became President.

proudgrampa

I think it's the "tinkle down theory" of economic expansion.

GemlikeFlame

Dude/Dudette, the utter clarity and undeniable efficacy of St. Ronnie's Trickle Down liturgy doesn't make sense to you? No? Well, I'll be.